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Gnarliest Core Item For GNAR!...?

Fionbri·10/27/2014, 1:36:59 AM·1 votes·3,646 views

----Why is Zeke's Herald not built on gnar as a core item? I mean, it has every stat Gnar would want. Ideally Gnar should be built so that he is safe, annoying, and annoying early game; bruiser-ish in the mid game, with his items benefiting both forms; then finishing off in the late game as a CC tank while still dishing out a nice burst. In this case, Gnar wants lifesteal + attack damage, health, cooldown reduction, armor/magic resist, more health+resist unless fed in which case he can choose to go for another damage item. Gnar does not want attack speed, heaps of attack damage, critical chance, ability power, or mana. ----Please read through first to see what I think of each popular core/first item for Gnar. When you're ready than cast your vote for the item you believe is best, and if you disagree- or think an item is better but for a reason I did not state then please do comment!

--------------------------------------------------------- Lets take a look at the items: ---------------------------------------------

item 3153 =

+25 Attack Damage +40% Attack Speed +10% Life Steal

UNIQUE Passive: Basic attacks deal 8% of the target's current Health in bonus physical damage (max 60 vs. monsters and minions) on hit. UNIQUE Active: Deals 10% of target champion's maximum Health (min. 100) as physical damage, heals for the same amount, and steals 25% of the target's Movement Speed for 3 seconds (90 second cooldown).

Bortk gives us nice AD and sustain for mini gnar. AtkSpd is basically lost in mega. Passive is weaker in mega because you are slower. Active is good for sticking in mega but by the time you smite them you will get kited back to the twisted treeline. (Yea... to another map that's right.)

item 3078

+30 Attack Damage +30 Ability Power +30% Attack Speed +10% Critical Strike Chance +8% Movement Speed +250 Health +200 Mana

UNIQUE Passive - Rage: Basic attacks grant 20 Movement Speed for 2 seconds. Kills grant 60 Movement Speed instead. This Movement Speed bonus is halved for ranged champions. UNIQUE Passive - Spellblade: After using an ability, the next basic attack deals bonus physical damage equal to 200% of base Attack Damage on hit (1.5 second cooldown).

Triforce is definitely the best damage for Gnar as it has stats for every form. Zeal gives atkspd and movespeed for mini. Sheen gives spellblade for mega, with a hint of minty ability power for mini's hyper. Mana is a waste of gold but who cares. Phage gives health and AD which is nice for both forms. The rage passive is great for kiting and sticking. Finally when triforce is complete you get 8% movespeed which is nice as well for both forms. But triforce isn't perfect. The crit, mana, and AP are a waste of gold. Trinity Force takes a long time to build, which means you will get defensive later. If you build defensive before finishing triforce then you will be wasting lots of gold since sheen isn't that great mid game; unless it is a trinity with the spellblade at 200%. Also, no cooldown reduction and no life steal.

item 3071 item 3142=

(BC) +200 Health +50 Attack Damage +10% Cooldown Reduction

UNIQUE Passive: +10 Armor Penetration Passive: Dealing physical damage to an enemy champion reduces their Armor by 5% for 4 seconds (stacks up to 5 times, up to 25%).

(YG) +30 Attack Damage +15% Critical Strike Chance +10% Cooldown Reduction

UNIQUE Passive: +20 Armor Penetration UNIQUE Active: Grants +20% Movement Speed and +40% Attack Speed for 6 seconds (45 second cooldown).

Black Cleaver gives health, AD, CDR, and armor pen. Great item for gnar. Only "eh" would be no life steal. But with its stats than a doran's blade lifesteal should suffice. Triforce and Cleaver are prob the best damage items, yet... pricey; when you should start spending money on more defensive items asap. -Youmuu's Ghostblade is only good if you are planning, and KNOW you will be split pushing. Too risky and situational to build as a reliant core item. Crit chance is a waste. AD and cdr are nice. Active should only be used for split pushing, or running away/sticking. Very weak in team fights. Ill pass.

item 3065 item 3143 item 3068 = The tanky rush. Gnar likes tanky. But Gnar also likes throwing people around, crushing them, and throwing out some gnarly damage as well. These items help you survive mid-late game so you can play as a pure utility tank. Reason these are not very good core (first item)s for Gnar is because they give no AD, and no lifesteal. Spirit Visage is the only one that gives some sort of sustain, but its more situational towards going up against a heavy AP enemy team comp. But still, Gnar likes tanky. But Gnar likes gnarly wreckage too! :(

item 3050 =

+250 Health +20% Cooldown Reduction

UNIQUE Aura: Grants allied champions +10% Life Steal and +20 Attack Damage.

Rename to Gnar's Herald asap tyvm. Bias aside. Zeke's gives gnar a very safe and reliant early game with vampiric scepter. Mid-Early game it gives Gnar a little more tanky and CDR. Then midgame zekes should be finished and gives Gnar tankyness, CDR, Lifesteal, AD, and also gives allies 10% lifesteal, and 20 AD. You basically bought every member of your team a free but better vampiric scepter. With Zeke's costing 2450, it is relatively cheap; allowing you to begin building your real defensive items sooner. The health from zeke's allows to to then choose whether to build armor, or magic resist, or more health. Zeke's Herald provides Gnar with his most important early game stats, benefiting BOTH forms, and making use of every stat. No item is perfect though! Yes, zeke's has a downside. The only situation zeke's would not be usefull is when you KNOW you will be split pushing, or your team will never be with you. These cases are bad because your team does not take advantage of the free vamp scepter you bought for them. :'( But you are NOT amumu. You are a cute little yordle that 99% of the community wants to cuddle with. The 1% being the enemy.

**Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think is the best core item for gnar (first item) that is most reliant and can be adapted to the widest variety of situations. **

10 Comments

Zeus Jukem10/27/2014, 1:40:41 AM1 votes

item 3031 everytim

12tales10/27/2014, 2:05:31 AM1 votes

Reasons why Zeke's herald is a poor buy -

Gnar has no synergy with lifesteal. He doesn't have on-hit physical damage, he's incapable of utilizing it in mega form, and his mini form is too short range to reliably auto attack in teamfights. His E and mega form also encourage him to build tanky, which diminishes the relative value of lifesteal and your ability to purchase enough AD/AS/Crit for it to be meaningful.

As an aura item, Zeke's herald is ineffective if you're ever alone. As a competent splitpusher and duelist, Gnar will often want to put himself in situations where the aura is wasted, in which case it becomes relatively slot and gold inefficient.

Unlike Aegis, the stats offered by Zeke's herald are very difficult to utilize for many roles. Mages often have no AD scaling at all and obviously can't use the lifesteal - most supports are in a similar situation. Tanks often lack the damage output in their kits to utilize the AD or lifesteal to any great effect. The only role that's going to almost certainly benefit from Zeke's herald is ADC, and most of them are building Bloodthirster, which is more than enough sustain on its own. This makes it a very situational buy.

Also, Gnar is not a champion that has difficulty itemizing for CDR. Brutalizer, Lucidity Boots, Locket/SV, SotAG (if jungling), CDR or CDR/level blues - he already has plenty of options to reach the 40% cap. So altho the CDR is obviously nice on him, it's not like Zeke's is the only way he can access it.

Finally, and most importantly - Brutalizer/Sunfire Cape are items with much better build paths for laning phase and greater slot efficiency in the vast majority of comps.

Sozan510/27/2014, 3:19:21 AM1 votes
  1. Blade of the Ruined King - gives a lot of damage per Auto-attack, works well with attack speed. As such it's a good item for mini-Gnar and not so much for Mega Gnar. Though, the movement speed passive is extremely helpful for Mega-Gnar.
  2. TF - don't like this item on Gnar honestly. Gives Mini-Gnar a bit more kiting potential (which he doesn't really need), a lot of unneeded stats and Spellblade isn't all that good on Mini-Gnar. On Mega-Gnar the item is okay, but not really outstanding.
  3. BC - IMO this might be the best choice for an offensive item for Gnar. His AoE physical damage makes shredding multiple targets a rather easy task and desirable one too, as his bases are generally higher than his scaling (so he benefits more from penetration than from AD).
  4. Youmuu - Meh. Better to build BC from Brutalizer than this. Youmuu is better for real AA champions.
  5. Sunfire - Actually it's a decent starting item for Gnar, as he actually have a decent damage from bases alone, and this will give him much needed tanky stats along with damaging aura.
  6. Randuin/SV - Good if you are losing lane and need to get tanky to survive/avoid being tower diven.
  7. Zeke's Herald

As an aura item, Zeke's herald is ineffective if you're ever alone. As a competent splitpusher and duelist, Gnar will often want to put himself in situations where the aura is wasted, in which case it becomes relatively slot and gold inefficient.

Wrong. Zeke is 101,5% gold efficient even when alone (isn't great but isn't ineffective and certainly not gold inefficient). It might become slot-inefficient though, as any other item cheaper than 3k.

Also, every champion that gets the Aura increases the cost-efficiency of Zeke by roughly 50%, which is very high for aura item (Locket increases by 27% per ally with aura). I suppose it's made that way because not every champion benefits from AD and LS that much.

Gnar also likes every single stat Zeke gives, especially CDR which isn't THAT easy to get maxed on him (though, it is completely possible to do so without Zeke). Life Steal is not necessary, but it's still useful.

But it doesn't mean that it's a good item to get in lane. 101,5% gold efficiency isn't bad, but it isn't good either. You can build an early kindlegem to balance out things with Brutalizer, but after that you should really go for other items first, as 1st item Zeke can cost you a lane (unless you know that jungler will sit there a lot, then it's good).

Anyway, in short - don't get this in every game and don't build it first anyway. Try to get this item whenever you have 3 or more AD champs on your team (including yourself) especially if they like AAs a lot.

Also, another imporant thing to remember: Zeke's Aura DOES NOT apply to minions (would be OP if it did, splitpushing would be extremely effective). On the other hand Aegis/Locket aura DOES apply to minions, giving them a bit more pushing power (the health regen is helping them most of course, as neither enemy minions nor turrets are capable of doing magic damage).

doubleguac10/27/2014, 3:32:14 AM1 votes

In my experience, Gnar is best when he rushes an early brutalizer then starts building towards huge tank items. His single target damage in mini is incredibly high without offensive items. He needs to be tanky enough to not get zoned out of team fights, so he can actually utilize his insane W, and build rage to transform. And he's incredibly vulnerable to being focused while transformed, further necessitating early tankiness.

Most of the Gnars that I see rushing BotRK or Tri-force will do fine in lane, but they get blown up in team fights before they can transform, and before they do all that much damage. Mini gnar is very low range, and his damage is all sustained. He needs to be able to mix it up near the front lines to be effective.